


sic itur ad astra

by donutsandcoffee



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, mostly a character study of ichiji and sanji and the contrast between the two, this is Not incest just in case it isn't clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 12:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11509596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsandcoffee/pseuds/donutsandcoffee
Summary: Humans can make out patterns out of nothing. Like discovering shapes in the cloud, or images between the stars. If you listen to static noise long enough they start to form meaningful words, even when there isn’t any.This is the closest approximation to how Ichiji feels things.It is almost fascinating, then, for him, to watch Sanji, who seems to feel everything with his entire being, so visceral and open andraw.





	sic itur ad astra

**Author's Note:**

> > sic itur ad astra -- "thus one goes to the stars."
> 
> A quick disclaimer before we begin: this is not a redemption fic. Ichiji is not a good person, and his mistakes will not be magically absolved at the end of this fic. This is, however, an attempt at character study; on not only the terrible things he has done, but also the terrible things that has been inflicted upon him.
> 
> It is not an excuse. It is not for sympathy. It is as it is; an observation, if you will. And at the end of the day, it is ultimately about _Sanji_ , whose kindness always ends up touching the hearts of people, even those who have hurt him. _Especially_ those who have hurt him.
> 
> This is also for the prompt family, for [32 Days of Sanji Event.](http://32daysofsanji.tumblr.com)

**i.**

Ichiji is happy.

He is approximately 78% sure about that.

The 22% exists within that assessment because, well. Ichiji grew up with a significant number of scientists and doctors declaring that he does not have emotions—does not possess the _capability_ to even form one—and there are only so many times you can hear about something before you start believing in it.

Ichiji supposes there is merit to that line of thought. He certainly does not _feel_ things, in the most common definition of the word. He is familiar with the concept of human feelings, the wide array of emotions that lie between the so-called Happiness to Sadness spectrum, but he never quite knows where he falls on that scale at any given point in time; he just knows that he does.

Humans can make out patterns out of nothing. Like discovering shapes in the cloud, or images in between the stars. If you listen to static noise long enough they start to form meaningful words, even when there isn’t any.

This is the closest approximation to how Ichiji feels things.

“What about Sanji?” He asks into the receiver, ignoring the buzz of celebration around him as another empire falls in the face of Germa’s might.

“He’s already here,” one of the soldiers answers through the transponder snail, and Ichiji feels a smirk tugs at the end of his lips.

There are shapes in the drifting clouds, words in the drawn-out static noise at the back of his mind.

“Oh? How fun,” he says. “I can’t wait to see him.”

“ _Liar_ ,” Niji spits out, but what does he know.

The stars say Ichiji is happy, so he is.

 

 

 

**ii.**

“We weren’t always like this,” Reiju says, and Ichiji has heard this one before from her. “We weren’t born without emotions.”

He turns a page of the book he is currently reading, almost too quickly, the papers rustling noisily against each other. “This is me…caring.”

Reiju is undeterred. She always is. “They did this to us when we were young; _younger_ , in your case. It’s like—“ she bites her lower lip, clearly frustrated, before settling with, “remember, when you were six, and all of us visited a village in an island in West Blue? They had this celebration where they carved faces on pumpkins?

“They had to scoop its insides,” she continues. “One of our soldiers took this knife, its blade the size of a man’s forearm, and he scooped out the insides of the pumpkin. Seeds and juices slopped out of the pumpkin, leaving it hollow and empty.”

He doesn’t say anything, and waits. Reiju shakes her head.

“That’s us,” she says, finally. “That pumpkin is us.”

Ichiji never quite likes metaphors; never sees the point of it. “What are you trying to say, Reiju?”

“Sanji is different,” she says, and he thinks, _oh_  . This is where this conversation is going, after all. Unsurprising; their forced reunion after thirteen years of pretending the other party does not exist allows a lot of old grievances to resurface. “Sanji isn’t like us; he isn’t _empty_ . He doesn’t deserve to be pulled back into—” she gestures at the spacious room around her, the mahogany door and the marble floor, as if there is something wrong with them. “ _This_.”

“It is what our father intended for him,” Ichiji says, because that is what their father said, and their father’s words are absolute. “He should be grateful that he, who was born a mistake, can finally be of use to this family.”

“Sanji was not a mistake,” Reiju fires back. “That was the whole point. Were you even listening?”

“It’s semantics,” he points out, rationally. “A mistake is a mistake is a mistake; no amount of metaphors can change that. He was intended to do one thing, and he could not achieve that. Wouldn’t that what you call a mistake?”

The fact that Reiju does not have anything to say to that is telling.

 

 

 

**iii.**

The scientists, among other things, taught them all chess. It is part of their war strategy lessons, a feeble attempt to make them remotely interesting to six-year-olds. It yields mixed results—Yonji never managed to understand the rules; Niji threw temper tantrums every time he lost, which happened more often than not; Reiju and Ichiji picked it up just fine.

Sanji _loved_ it.

The first thing they learned (for chess, for war strategies, for _everything_ ) is how to win. The key to winning, they taught him, is to understand your opponent.

Ichiji never won a single game against Sanji.

It can get frustrating, trying to understand Sanji. They are similar—they are _brothers_ , born on the same day—but looking at Sanji is like looking into a broken mirror; his reflection all splintered up, cracking at the edges.

He asked Sanji, once. How he kept winning, when he was so terrible at their war strategy lessons. Whether he cheated.

 _I think_ , he remembers Sanji saying, meek and shy and subdued. _With chess, you have to make sacrifices to win._

He knew that. Just like war tactics. The key to chess is to sacrifice everything you’ve got except your king.

Sanji shook his head at that. _Sacrifices are only easy in chess. In life, if you sacrifice something, you are losing a little bit of yourself, too. There is no point in a victory if you’re a lone victor._ He looked down at his hands, and said, almost to himself, _You can be a king on an empty chess board, but you can’t lead a kingdom without its people_.

Baffling. Downright _foolish_ , really.

And now, years later from that day, Sanji is standing before their father once again. Ichiji has heard of his exploits in the New World, how he defeated Yonji without breaking a sweat, and yet here he is, shaking like a leaf and looks oh, so, very small.

“In the event that you insist on challenging my orders,” their father declared, holding up a picture of a chef from East Blue, “I have it on good authority that this man will meet an untimely death.”

Sanji sucks in an audible breath, all the bravado he’s been boasting gone from his posture—shoulders slumped, head hung low. Ichiji chuckles to himself at the sight. It is so obvious, now that they are older.

The key to understanding Sanji is that he is too afraid to sacrifice too many pieces on his board.

 

 

 

**iv.**

It is the anniversary of their mother’s death.

They hold a ceremony every year, without fail. It is a nationwide affair—flags half-mast, citizens clad in black, people looking solemn on the street. Above, dark clouds start to gather over their floating kingdom, accompanied by the ominous rumbling of thunder. Beneath their feet, waves crash against their ships, and the ground trembles.

It is the only day that their father cries.

It is the only day that their father looks weak.

Ichiji does not understand the sentiment; everything about their mother always feels distant, detached, like hearing a song he has forgotten the lyrics to, or trying to recall a dream he once had a long time ago. There is a certain kind of urgency to it, a part of his consciousness telling him _listen, listen, listen_ , but the voice is muted, almost faded.

This is also how Ichiji sees himself nowadays. And probably has been for a long time, now that he thinks about it. He does not feel like he has the inherent ownership to his limbs, from the strands of his hair down to the soles of his feet. Distant, detached. Everything pales in comparison to his father’s will, or the objectives of today’s mission.

Sanji asked him once, when they were kids. _Why are you doing this to me?_

And the answer to that has always been: he does not know.

When your world is narrowed down to your father’s wish and the commands from anyone who is rich and willing to pay enough, soul-searching questions like, _why are you doing this?_ or, _how do you feel about this?_ tend to take a back seat. Ichiji tries not to dwell too much on those.

Maybe Reiju was right. Maybe he was not always like this. He remembers sitting at the edge of his mother’s hospital bed, laughing to a joke she was telling animatedly, and there was something swelling, underneath his ribcage, a loud _lub, lub, lub_ ringing in his ears at the way she smiled—

Or maybe not.

It would not have changed a single thing. The chess pieces were never his to sacrifice. Their father’s words are absolute.

 

 

 

**v.**

“You got into a fight with Sanji again,” Reiju says as soon as she walks into his room. It is a statement, not a question. Almost accusatory.

Ichiji does not bother to look away from the window. “Yes,” he agrees. “Though ‘fight’ would be a gross exaggeration when our dear little brother could barely put up a struggle, even after all these years.”

Reiju tenses, but does not argue. When he catches her reflection on the window, her shoulders are slumped, and she looks tired.

“Why are you doing this, Ichiji?” She asks.

“He disobeyed our father’s order,” Ichiji says. “He attacked Niji over that pathetic excuse of a chef.”

“You know what I meant,” she presses. “ _Why_ are you still doing this to Sanji?”

Ichiji tilts his head, genuinely confused. The static noise in his head refuses to churn out a single word. “We both know neither of us have the answer to that question.”

Reiju sighs, and Ichiji shares the sentiment.

If trying to understand Sanji is frustrating, trying to understand Reiju is downright _exasperating._  With Sanji, he knows, at least, that they are fundamentally different—Sanji is the mistake, the failure, the dud. Reiju, however, should be familiar. She should be the same as him. But instead she seems to perceive things differently; like they both have lost the same puzzle pieces, but Reiju still knows how the big picture looks like.

Lightning strikes, illuminating the room for a split second.

“Are you hurt?” Reiju asks. For a moment, he can’t see her eyes, can’t read her expression. “Or do you just want to hurt someone else?”

Drops of rain begin to fall, outside. “Yes,” he answers.

 

 

 

**vi.**

On the day of the wedding, there are guns pointed at their heads, close enough that Ichiji could feel the metallic chill of the barrels against his temple. Their father is crying ( _weak, weak, weak_ ) and in that moment two thoughts are formed, unbidden, in Ichiji’s mind, among the static: one fact he already knows, and one fact he begins to learn.

One fact he already knows: the chess pieces were never his to sacrifice.

One fact he begins to learn: he is one of those chess pieces.

Ichiji cannot bring himself to get upset by the revelation, just like he cannot bring himself to get upset by his apparent and inevitable demise. Death is part of war, he has been taught; of life, of anything. They have erred in their judgment on Big Mom and they are paying the price. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And it’s not like Ichiji _wants_ to die, but he does not exactly have a say in this. In the grand scheme of things, if you look at it in all the right ways, he never really had a say in anything, really.

He cannot bring himself to get upset about this, either.

(The voice, far-away and buried, tells him, _listen, listen, listen—_ )

He suddenly thinks of Reiju’s story. He supposes he can finally understand why the empty, hollow pumpkins are smiling.

 

 

 

**vii.**

Sanji is standing tall on the table, looming and _imposing_ in a way he never thought was possible for that particular brother of his. Ichiji looks up (up, _up_ , implying that he is _below_ , to Sanji, out of all people) and realizes that he does not understand Sanji—his actions, and his reasonings, and his _everything_.

After all they’ve done. After all they’ve done to _him_.

It’s a whirlwind of actions after that—one of the Strawhats hands him their raid suits as Big Mom’s army approaches, and it’s a flurry of swings and kicks and groans before he finds himself almost side by side with Sanji as their enemies circle them warily.

“I don’t get it,” he tells Sanji, because any time is as good as any.

Sanji clearly disagrees, because he gives Ichiji a _look_ that is equal parts exasperated and baffled. “This is—what the fuck, this is a shitty time to talk about this.”

“You hate me,” Ichiji goes on talking, because he’s never good at listening to Sanji anyways.

“I hate you,” Sanji agrees. “You’re a _scum_.”

“Then why should it matter to you that I die?”

Sanji’s kick falters at that, and he misses a soldier; Ichiji punches the lucky soldier in the face to get the job done. “I don’t,” Sanji says, and he sounds like he’s struggling with his own answer. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Didn’t you say so yourself?” Ichiji points out, almost parroting Sanji’s earlier words. “I’m a scum. I deserve everything that is coming to me.” The static is getting louder in his head, and he can’t make out anything from it no matter how hard he tries. “I don’t understand why it should be a big deal to you if I die.”

“Stop saying that,” Sanji grits out. “Stop saying that you’ll die.”

There is another battalion of Big Mom’s soldiers advancing, swinging their blades towards them. Sanji does a spinning kick to bat their blades away, and they don’t talk for a moment, focusing on the enemy’s forces. It is not quiet—there are loud gunshots and louder screams on the battlefield—but Ichiji thinks there’s a certain kind of silence descending in the space between them anyways, suffocating the air.

As their enemy dwindles, it is Sanji who breaks it.

“There’s this—thing, okay. This thing, where you’ve made a lot of mistakes, and done horrible things, and I hate you for it. You don’t get a free pass on that. I fucking _despise_ you for it,” Sanji says, voice trembling imperceptibly; it sounds a lot like he is spitting out poison, acid dripping from his tongue. He takes a moment to take a long, shuddering breath. “But there’s also this thing, this thing where other people made your mistakes for you. This one—this one isn’t on you.”

He points at Vinsmoke Judge, across the battlefield. “This one is on that bastard.”

“That’s semantics,” Ichiji says, almost an echo of his past self, because he doesn’t know anything else anymore. “A mistake is a mistake is a mistake.”

Sanji shakes his head. “A person is not a collection of their mistakes.” He glances at Straw Hat Luffy, grinning widely even in the middle of danger. Sanji must have seen something in Straw Hat, because the edges of his expression smoothen into something softer. “That is not what they taught me.”

Ichiji looks at the man before him. Strong and proud and tall, steel in his spine. He thinks of the small little brother in his memory, bruised and battered, and wonders if they are even the same person.

“Who?” He asks, almost in a whisper; the static turns into a buzz, and then a low hum.

“My captain,” Sanji says, and then adds, like an afterthought: “and my father,” and they both know he is not referring to the man who cried pitifully across the table at the wedding.

The key to understanding Sanji, he always thought, is that he is too afraid to sacrifice too many of his pawns. He holds onto them, like a little kid, stubbornly clasping his hands together so that none of the pieces would slip through his fingers.

He was wrong.

The key to understanding Sanji is that he doesn’t see people as chess pieces to sacrifice.

 

 

 

**viii.**

 

It is the day after their mother’s death.

The funeral just ended, and the children are free from their lessons for once—everyone is still grieving, too shell-shocked to continue with their daily lives. Ichiji doesn’t quite understand, but he isn’t about to question father’s decisions.

He finds Sanji at their room, crying noisily into his pillow. Ichiji ignores him, and walks towards the table at the center of the room instead. There’s an open chessboard on it, its pieces still placed in an unfinished game, stopped prematurely when they heard the news about their mother’s death.

“Do you want to play?” Ichiji asks. “I think I can beat you today.”

There’s a choked sob from Sanji’s bed. “We just," Sanji mumbles, voice muffled by the pillow covering his face. "We just came home from mom’s funeral."

Ichiji starts picking the pieces up, resetting the board. “This is me...caring.”

He expected Sanji to get angry, to start throwing those weak punches of his, but when Ichiji looks up, Sanji is looking at him with an odd expression.

“Ichiji? You’re…” Sanji says, but he does not finish his sentence.

Sanji rubs his face, wiping his tears, and climbs down the bed. “Okay,” he says, and starts setting the pieces together with Ichiji. “I’ll play with you.” His tone sounds like he’s indulging Ichiji, like he’s doing this _for_ Ichiji. It’s annoying.

When Ichiji touches his own cheek, it is wet.

Ichiji scrambles to rub his eyes, erasing the pinpricks of tears that form at the edges of his eyes. It’s not like it means anything to him—he doesn’t feel things, not in the most common definition of the word. The tears won’t stop falling though, and he has to ignore the way something in his chest feels like it doesn't fit quite right, humming with a solid ache around his sternum; and he thinks how he doesn’t quite know where he falls on the scale of emotions at any given point in time, but he knows that he does. He knows that he does.

 

 

**ix.**

The sky is bright and blue and vast, and the Whole Cake Island is disappearing into the horizon.

Ichiji stands on the railings of the Straw Hat’s ship, ready to fly back towards his own. Sanji is standing not far from him; to see him off or to kick him off, he isn’t sure. Sanji does look like he’s going to do the latter much more than the former, though.

So he tilts his head towards Sanji. “What do you want me to do?”

Sanji frowns, nose scrunched up in disgust. “Why the fuck should I care?”

“It is a fair question,” he points out. “Loathe that I am to admit this… I am still indebted to you, after all. We all are.”

Sanji bites down on the cigarette between his teeth, hard. “Don’t ever show your shitty face in front of me again, then. That’s all I give a shit about. Hell, do something that isn’t hurting other people, for once.”

Straw Hat Luffy must have overheard their conversation, because he cranes his neck towards them, holding a hand on his hat to keep it from falling. A grin, quicksilver and free, flashes across his face.

“Well,” Straw Hat Luffy says, like the answer is easy, like the answer has been there all along. “What do _you_ want to do?”

The question punches a breath out of him.

What _he_ wants. That’s funny. Ichiji never thought about that.

Sanji must’ve sensed something from him, because he starts walking threateningly towards Ichiji. “Don’t start getting all philosophical on me, just get your ass off this ship and never come back again!”

Ichiji looks up at the sky. _Listen, listen, listen._

 

 

**x.**

For the first time in his life, Ichiji smiles.

 


End file.
